A Hundred Little Threads
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: [post HBP. Oneshot. Ginny's POV] It's strange the things you can find in an old and fraying blanket, isn't it?


**(A/N: It's short and the ending's quite abrupt, but whatever. Review if you like.)  
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**A Hundred Little Threads**

The cloth is old and faded, hardly a memory of what it could have been, once-upon-a-time. It was never very beautiful, but you used to pretend it was gorgeous and gaudy, with gold and silk and rich dyes and perfect needlework.

You used to pretend that it was your cape, and you were a queen of a far-off kingdom. You used to pretend that your prince would come and sweep you off your feet and you'd have an amazing wedding and your mother would be there, crying and kissing you and telling you how much she loved you and how proud of you she was.

You used to pretend that the pitiful blanket was something so much more than it could have ever been.

And you stand here now, in your drafty room stuck under your brother's, holding the blanket and watching as it's slowly falling apart, one thread at a time. The edges are fraying, now, and you can't see the badly embroidered border that you used to pretend had been stitched by a fairy, even though you stitched it yourself.

The tiny threads cover your bed and get in your hair when you sleep, and every time you touch it, more little threads come off and the blanket loses a little more of it's fairytale sheen. Every now and then, when you're in a bad mood, you pull off some of the threads. You haven't touched it in a while, but the threads still fall. A hundred threads have fallen off since the last time you touched it.

A hundred little threads have fallen off since the last time you grew up.

You can see beyond the beauty you imagined now, you can see the bad stitching and dull coloring, you can see that hole that you made when you tore it going down the stairs. You can see it laid out before you in all it's bitter glory, an ugly reminder of the wonder life used to hold for you.

None of the wonder is left now, just an ugly blanket that's falling apart. You can count the threads and you can count the times you thought you'd never be the same.

Writing in a diary of a madman and meeting a boy who turned into a man who you could have sworn you loved and watching a tournament and fighting Death Eaters and watching a man who'd lost everything lose his life and seeing a mentor dead at your feet and seeing your brother in a hospital wing covered in scars and watching a man who you could have sworn you loved walking away.

You can count each and every time you've grown up and changed for good and you wonder how anyone can pinpoint a time that they simply stopped being a child. You've learned that it's an acquired thing. You grow up slowly, point by point, and each little thread that's fallen off a blanket has shown you how an infant becomes an adult. Through trials and errors and love and hate, and a hundred little threads are a testament to the lessons you never wanted to learn.

You're sitting in your drafty room stuck under your brother's and watching the threads that used to weave your life fall into tiny little pieces that get caught in your hair when you sleep. Another little thread falls off and another little thread marks another little lesson learned. You should have learned to sew before trying to make a blanket, but you didn't and now you have to live with the consequences.

It's such an obvious metaphor it's almost sickening.

But everything about this blanket is metaphorical, from the frayed edges to the bad embroidery to the little threads that litter the floor. Even the picture in the center, the faded sun that's oddly pink, is a metaphor for something or other and when you learn what it is, another few threads will fall.

You think it has something to do with the sun shining tomorrow, even if the edges of life are frayed and the stitches that hold it together are falling apart and the lessons you've learned are adding up to be more than the dreams you used to have.

A hundred little threads fell before you realized the difference between child and grownup, and another hundred will fall before you make the change yourself. You've grown up a little more every time you see it, and you'll grow up even more until the threads of the sun begin to fall. Then the metaphor will be over and so will the blanket and so will your childhood.

And you'd sew it back together if you knew how, but it's a lesson you never learned for lack of time and interest. You wish you'd learned to sew before you'd made a blanket, but you never were one for foresight.


End file.
